User Resistance to the Implementation of Information Systems: A Psychological Contract Breach Perspective

The current study proposes an exploratory model to examine the antecedents of user resistance in information system (IS) implementations from the perspective of a psychological contract breach (PCB). The purpose of this study is to investigate PCBs between users and IS providers (ISPs), which extends IS theory in two ways: by elaborating on why some users psychologically resist the IS, and by more deeply exploring the social-psychological determinants of user resistance. Our results show that user-perceived PCBs can lead to user resistance and feelings of violation via reneging, high user vigilance, and incongruence between the users’ and the ISP’s understandings of the obligations. Our results also show that users’ interpretations—i.e., causal attribution of the breach and perceived fairness after the breach—moderate the relationship between user-perceived PCBs and feelings of violation. We discuss our findings and their academic and practical implications, and suggest directions for future research

Hydrological Impact of Climate Change on Runoffs the Gumara and Gilgel Abbay Watersheds, the Upper Blue Nile Basin, Ethiopia

Source: ICHE Conference Archive - https://mdi-de.baw.de/icheArchive

Assessing Climate Change Impact on Gilgel Abbay and Gumara Watershed Hydrology, the Upper Blue Nile Basin, Ethiopia

Climate change and variability have significant influences on hydrological cycles and the availability of water in the Horn of Africa. Projections of six General Circulation Models (GCMs) in association with high (A2) and low (B1) emission scenarios were adopted in this study from the Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES) for the period 2020 - 2039 to assess the impacts of climate changes on the Gilgel Abbay and Gumara watershed hydrology, the upper Blue Nile basin, Ethiopia. The GCMs selected were screened in accordance with baseline climate statistics of study areas. A weather generator was employed to generate daily temperature and precipitation to drive the General Water Loading Function (GWLF) hydrological model for simulating runoffs. Projected changes in temperature differences and precipitation ratios relative to the baseline were analyzed to explain the variations in evapotranspiration and the influences on runoff. Despite the fact that the projected magnitude varies among GCMs, increasing runoff in both wet and dry seasons was observed for both watersheds, attributable mainly to the increase in precipitation projected by most GCMs. In contrast to the great increases in runoff, variations in evapotranspiration are less significant. The projected runoff in both watersheds implies increased potential for promoting agricultural irrigation in the dry season. Furthermore, it would allow greater inflow to Lake Tana, the largest contributor to the Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile. Therefore, concerned local, state, and federal government organizations shall be prepared to harness opportunities from the projected increase in runoff

Transient Climate Response in Coupled Atmospheric–Ocean General Circulation Models

The equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) has a large uncertainty range among models participating in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) and has recently been presented as “inherently unpredictable.” One way to circumvent this problem is to consider the transient climate response (TCR). However, the TCR among AR4 models also differs by more than a factor of 2. The authors argue that the situation may not necessarily be so pessimistic, because much of the intermodel difference may be due to the fact that the models were run with their oceans at various stages of flux adjustment with their atmosphere. This is shown by comparing multimillennium-long runs of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies model, version E, coupled with the Hybrid Coordinate Ocean Model (GISS-EH) and the Community Climate System Model, version 4 (CCSM4) with what were reported to AR4. The long model runs here reveal the range of variability (~30%) in their TCR within the same model with the same ECS. The commonly adopted remedy of subtracting the “climate drift” is ineffective and adds to the variability. The culprit is the natural variability of the control runs, which exists even at quasi equilibration. Fortunately, for simulations with multidecadal time horizon, robust solutions can be obtained by branching off thousand-year-long control runs that reach “quasi equilibration” using a new protocol, which takes advantage of the fact that forced solutions to radiative forcing forget their initial condition after 30–40 yr and instead depend mostly on the trajectory of the radiative forcing

Assessing water resources vulnerability and resilience of southern Taiwan to climate change

Water resources management has become more challenging in Taiwan due to rapid socio-economic development and the complications of climate change. This study developed a systematic procedure for assessing water resources vulnerability and resilience with an integrated tool, TaiWAP, including climate change scenarios, a weather generator, a hydrological model, and system dynamic models. Five assessment indicators, including two for vulnerability, two for resilience, and one for availability were used to quantify changes in water resources and improvements after implementing adaption measures. Each indicator was presented with 3 grades, namely low, medium, and high. Water resources vulnerability and resilience for Tainan City in southern Taiwan were evaluated. Insufficient water supply facilities capacity is the major weakness causing low resilience. Water resources allocation flexibility is limited by substantial agricultural water demands. A total of 9 adaption measures and combinations of measures were assessed. Desalination plant implementation can steadily supply public water to lessen system failure duration. Although agricultural water conservation and fallow land can greatly reduce water demand, fallow compensation is a potential cost. When food security is considered, reducing irrigation leakage will be a better adaption measure to both water and agriculture stakeholders. Both agriculture water conservation and cropping systems adjustment have cross-spatial flexibilities. The combination of desalination, reservoirs and public water conservation provide the most beneficial effects in reducing climate change impact

Detection of EBV Infection and Gene Expression in Oral Cancer from Patients in Taiwan by Microarray Analysis

Epstein-Barr virus is known to cause nasopharyngeal carcinoma. Although oral cavity is located close to the nasal pharynx, the pathogenetic role of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) in oral cancers is unclear. This molecular epidemiology study uses EBV genomic microarray (EBV-chip) to simultaneously detect the prevalent rate and viral gene expression patterns in 57 oral squamous cell carcinoma biopsies (OSCC) collected from patients in Taiwan. The majority of the specimens (82.5%) were EBV-positive that probably expressed coincidently the genes for EBNAs, LMP2A and 2B, and certain structural proteins. Importantly, the genes fabricated at the spots 61 (BBRF1, BBRF2, and BBRF3) and 68 (BDLF4 and BDRF1) on EBV-chip were actively expressed in a significantly greater number of OSCC exhibiting exophytic morphology or ulceration than those tissues with deep invasive lesions (P = .0265 and .0141, resp.). The results may thus provide the lead information for understanding the role of EBV in oral cancer pathogenesis

Square Key Matrix Management Scheme in Wireless Sensor Networks

In this paper we propose a symmetric cryptographic approach named Square Key Matrix Management Scheme (SKMaS) in which a sensor node named Key Distribution Server (KDS) is responsible for the security of key management. When the system starts up, the KDS sends its individual key and two sets of keys to sensor nodes. With the IDs, any two valid sensor nodes, e.g. i and j, can individually identify the corresponding communication keys (CKs) to derive a dynamic shared key (DSK) for encrypting/decrypting messages transmitted between them. When i leaves the underlying network, the CKs and the individually keys currently utilized by i can be reused by a newly joining sensor, e.g. h. However, when h joins the network, if no such previously-used IDs are available, h will be given a new ID, CKs and the individually key by the KDS. The KDS encrypts the CKs, with which an existing node q can communicate with h, with individual key so that only q rather than h can correctly decrypt the CKs. The lemmas and security analyses provided in this paper prove that the proposed system can protect at least three common attacks

Assessing the Impacts of Experimentally Elevated Temperature on the Biological Composition and Molecular Chaperone Gene Expression of a Reef Coral

Due to the potential for increasing ocean temperatures to detrimentally impact reef-building corals, there is an urgent need to better understand not only the coral thermal stress response, but also natural variation in their sub-cellular composition. To address this issue, while simultaneously developing a molecular platform for studying one of the most common Taiwanese reef corals, Seriatopora hystrix, 1,092 cDNA clones were sequenced and characterized. Subsequently, RNA, DNA and protein were extracted sequentially from colonies exposed to elevated (30°C) temperature for 48 hours. From the RNA phase, a heat shock protein-70 (hsp70)-like gene, deemed hsp/c, was identified in the coral host, and expression of this gene was measured with real-time quantitative PCR (qPCR) in both the host anthozoan and endosymbiotic dinoflagellates (genus Symbiodinium). While mRNA levels were not affected by temperature in either member, hsp/c expression was temporally variable in both and co-varied within biopsies. From the DNA phase, host and Symbiodinium hsp/c genome copy proportions (GCPs) were calculated to track changes in the biological composition of the holobiont during the experiment. While there was no temperature effect on either host or Symbiodinium GCP, both demonstrated significant temporal variation. Finally, total soluble protein was responsive to neither temperature nor exposure time, though the protein/DNA ratio varied significantly over time. Collectively, it appears that time, and not temperature, is a more important driver of the variation in these parameters, highlighting the need to consider natural variation in both gene expression and the molecular make-up of coral holobionts when conducting manipulative studies. This represents the first study to survey multiple macromolecules from both compartments of an endosymbiotic organism with methodologies that reflect their dual-compartmental nature, ideally generating a framework for assessing molecular-level changes within corals and other endosymbioses exposed to changes in their environment

Impact of Climate Drift on Twenty-First-Century Projection in a Coupled Atmospheric–Ocean General Circulation Model

Reducing climate drift in coupled atmosphere–ocean general circulation models (AOGCMs) usually requires 1000–2000 years of spinup, which has not been practical for every modeling group to do. For the purpose of evaluating the impact of climate drift, the authors have performed a multimillennium-long control run of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies model (GISS-EH) AOGCM and produced different twentieth-century historical simulations and subsequent twenty-first-century projections by branching off the control run at various stages of equilibration. The control run for this model is considered at quasi equilibration after a 1200-yr spinup from a cold start. The simulations that branched off different points after 1200 years are robust, in the sense that their ensemble means all produce the same future projection of warming, both in the global mean and in spatial detail. These robust projections differ from the one that was originally submitted to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4), which branched off a not-yet-equilibrated control run. The authors test various common postprocessing schemes in removing climate drift caused by a not-yet-equilibrated ocean initial state and find them to be ineffective, judging by the fact that they differ from each other and from the robust results that branched off an equilibrated control. The authors' results suggest that robust twenty-first-century projections of the forced response can be achieved by running climate simulations from an equilibrated ocean state, because memory of the different initial ocean state is lost in about 40 years if the forced run is started from a quasi-equilibrated state